Mayer Spivack (1936 - 2011) is @MayerSpivack on Twitter. He was a consultant and advisor on organizational behavior, innovation, and learning, based near Boston, Massachusetts. He was also an artist working in a variety of media. All writing and artworks presented here are the original work and are the copyrighted property of Mayer Spivack. Nothing on this weblog is aggregated from other sources. Reasonable use involving copying with attribution, and limited sharing not for profit, are allowed. Your comments are invited. This blog is now maintained by his son, Nova Spivack. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your interest.

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April 08, 2009

Economic Recession and The Psychological Ecosystem Around Individual Depression and Violence

Economic recession and depression are part of the larger
psychological ecosystem that interacts with individual human depression. If we
were too busy to notice these relationships before the current economic ‘downturn’,
we cannot fail to be aware of it now if we read the headlines.

We all live together in a largely unnoticed greater
context of nested interacting ecosystems. This is a way of describing and
interlinking environments of all sorts—physical, social, economic, educational,
climatic, geophysical—I could go on naming them until the list and their interactions
became too complex to imagine, let alone sort out. That is the work of science,
and this is a brief article of opinion.

People are killing themselves and each other at an
increasing rate. While what the media casually refers to as ‘gun violence’ has
always varied quite a lot, in the United States statistics have been more or
less consistently bloody with up’s and down’s but the yearly totals of deaths
by violence of all kinds is usually written in red ink. Murder is probably
easier with a gun, but without guns, psychotics would kill with knives or bats or automobiles.
We cannot hope to limit the uses of sticks and stones, bats and bullets, but we
can and must deliver mental health intervention to desperately needy families
and individuals even in tough times. Most especially in tough times. Everyone
knows of at least one such example. Every community institution is aware of
several or many. We pile up the papers, overwork and underpay our health
delivery workers and ignore the problems until the spike on the desk is
suddenly bloodied.

Since the downturn, there has been an up-tick, a
compulsive thumb cocking the hammer and releasing the safety; taking aim at the
mirror or through the window. Desperate times trigger desperate acts and the
times are becoming increasingly desperate.

The feeling of helplessness, or real hopelessness and helplessness
for that matter, is at least in part a mental and emotional trap, a closed dark
room. For some this room has only rage and a gun as an exit.

Will we change our attitudes about emotional stress,
depression, and the potential for destructive acts like murder and suicide, or
quite often murder/suicide and rid ourselves of the stigma of being human and
terribly upset?

Probably we will not be effective in large-scale public
education and healthcare delivery for some time to come, as financial resources
for preventative care are being cut from budgets. Can you see the downward
spiral?

We may complain and grow fearful for our lives and for our
children’s safety, but it is our collective responsibility, not our guilt, that
needs to be recognized. In these desperate times, we desperately need
legislation to assist in the early identification of children and adults who
are at high risk of committing mayhem, and get some kind of help delivered to
their doors, whatever the cost.

There are far too many privately owned guns in the nation
to effectively reduce their use in psychotic attacks. There are, as most of us
have been figuring out, far more crazy people, seriously crazy people, in every
group than we used to believe. Believe it now.

As a nation, we have jealously guarded both our first amendment
right to peaceably assemble, and our second amendment right to keep and bear
arms. These two positive aspects of our national heritage are coming into
increasing conflict. How long will you or anyone feel safe in a crowd that
(statistically) must contain a few depressed people with fear, helplessness, self-hate,
rage, and homicide blocking their minds?

Gun control, or perhaps more realistically an acceptably
intelligent negotiated legislative effort leading to ‘gun management’ will be
of some limited help.

We must focus our attention on matters of mental health,
childhood education and safety from abuse, and job creation.

Comments

Economic Recession and The Psychological Ecosystem Around Individual Depression and Violence

Economic recession and depression are part of the larger
psychological ecosystem that interacts with individual human depression. If we
were too busy to notice these relationships before the current economic ‘downturn’,
we cannot fail to be aware of it now if we read the headlines.

We all live together in a largely unnoticed greater
context of nested interacting ecosystems. This is a way of describing and
interlinking environments of all sorts—physical, social, economic, educational,
climatic, geophysical—I could go on naming them until the list and their interactions
became too complex to imagine, let alone sort out. That is the work of science,
and this is a brief article of opinion.

People are killing themselves and each other at an
increasing rate. While what the media casually refers to as ‘gun violence’ has
always varied quite a lot, in the United States statistics have been more or
less consistently bloody with up’s and down’s but the yearly totals of deaths
by violence of all kinds is usually written in red ink. Murder is probably
easier with a gun, but without guns, psychotics would kill with knives or bats or automobiles.
We cannot hope to limit the uses of sticks and stones, bats and bullets, but we
can and must deliver mental health intervention to desperately needy families
and individuals even in tough times. Most especially in tough times. Everyone
knows of at least one such example. Every community institution is aware of
several or many. We pile up the papers, overwork and underpay our health
delivery workers and ignore the problems until the spike on the desk is
suddenly bloodied.

Since the downturn, there has been an up-tick, a
compulsive thumb cocking the hammer and releasing the safety; taking aim at the
mirror or through the window. Desperate times trigger desperate acts and the
times are becoming increasingly desperate.

The feeling of helplessness, or real hopelessness and helplessness
for that matter, is at least in part a mental and emotional trap, a closed dark
room. For some this room has only rage and a gun as an exit.

Will we change our attitudes about emotional stress,
depression, and the potential for destructive acts like murder and suicide, or
quite often murder/suicide and rid ourselves of the stigma of being human and
terribly upset?

Probably we will not be effective in large-scale public
education and healthcare delivery for some time to come, as financial resources
for preventative care are being cut from budgets. Can you see the downward
spiral?

We may complain and grow fearful for our lives and for our
children’s safety, but it is our collective responsibility, not our guilt, that
needs to be recognized. In these desperate times, we desperately need
legislation to assist in the early identification of children and adults who
are at high risk of committing mayhem, and get some kind of help delivered to
their doors, whatever the cost.

There are far too many privately owned guns in the nation
to effectively reduce their use in psychotic attacks. There are, as most of us
have been figuring out, far more crazy people, seriously crazy people, in every
group than we used to believe. Believe it now.

As a nation, we have jealously guarded both our first amendment
right to peaceably assemble, and our second amendment right to keep and bear
arms. These two positive aspects of our national heritage are coming into
increasing conflict. How long will you or anyone feel safe in a crowd that
(statistically) must contain a few depressed people with fear, helplessness, self-hate,
rage, and homicide blocking their minds?

Gun control, or perhaps more realistically an acceptably
intelligent negotiated legislative effort leading to ‘gun management’ will be
of some limited help.

We must focus our attention on matters of mental health,
childhood education and safety from abuse, and job creation.

Blogroll of honor + Websites

The Alex Foundation- Home pageIrene Pepperberg studies cognitive process, teaching and learning in birds. She is problably the most recognized researcher on avian cognition in the world. Alex, her now famous long-time research subject and 'collaborator' recently died at half his life expectancy. Now Wart and Griffin are her collaborators. They are saying and doing things we used to believe that only small children, great apes, and dolphins could do. Her brilliant work deserves better funding.

Minding the PlanetNova is a cognitive scientist and high-tech entrepreneur working on technologies that overcome our information overload. He has founded companies and is now developing interactive internet software, TWINE, that we all need. His thinking covers a great range. He is my Son.